1. Field of the Invention.
This invention relates generally to wrist-worn instruments and indicators for personal activities, like watches and personal altitude, cardiac, distance and speed indicators, for example. More specifically, this invention relates to wrist-worn instrument faces or displays which contain indicating icons which assist the user in programming or prompting the instrument.
2. Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,671 (Tschannen) discloses a wristwatch which has communication capability. Received messages may be indicated by display means which are housed in the timepiece.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,604 (Nepple et al.) Discloses a wrist-worn paging system with icons indicating that a message has been received and that a message has been missed.
Still, there is a need in the wristwatch industry for a wrist-worn face which has indicating icons for programming and prompting the instrument. This invention addresses that need.
The invention is a wrist-worn instrument face or display that has dot matrix indicating icons for programming or prompting the instrument. The icons may be single or combinations of symbols, numbers and text. In particular, the icons indicate a function of the instrument, and xe2x80x9cpointxe2x80x9d to a specific function key located near the instrument face to indicate which key is to be pressed, and how many times it is to be pressed, and/or what plurality of keys are to be pressed and in what order, in order to obtain an identified, desired read-out on the instrument face or display. This way, operation of several functions, even ones requiring multiple keystrokes, may be easily accomplished by the user without referring to the operations manual.